The head of one of America's most influential right-wing advocacy groups has vowed to force certain Wall Street CEOs out of their jobs as a show of force against "wokeness," investigative reporter Lauren Windsor wrote for Rolling Stone on Monday.
Lisa Nelson, who runs the American Legislative Exchange Council, "was discussing Larry Fink of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, and Brian Moynihan of Bank of America, the second largest bank in the country," wrote Windsor. "She appeared to be speaking metaphorically, as she struggled to refer to an unknown movie. Nelson made the comments at the Consumers’ Research Summit in Sea Island, Georgia. Rolling Stone has obtained exclusive audio and documents from the event."
“Whether it’s Larry Fink or Brian Moynihan, we have got to take one of these guys out,” said Nelson. “Brian Moynihan is the guy, or Larry Fink is the guy that we should have their scalp.”
These two CEOs have become top targets for the MAGA movement because they have not only promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, but also adopted environmental, social, and governance, or ESG, investing, which essentially tries to factor the long-term impact of things like climate change and social unrest into portfolio risk.
ALEC is best known as a so-called "bill mill" for right-wing state legislators, drafting sample bills that they can introduce in various states that further conservative goals like energy deregulation. The group has been behind a number of anti-ESG bills introduced or adopted in states around the country, which declare state pension funds cannot work with asset managers who consider issues like climate as part of investment strategies.
This comes shortly after Windsor's report on how officials in Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office were caught bragging about how they used the threat of antitrust investigations and a ban on municipal bond access to strongarm a number of U.S. banks, including Wells Fargo, into pulling out of the global Net Zero Banking Alliance, which encourages banks to invest in ways that further the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.
